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Moscow police make arrests as nationalists attempt to hold rally

11 January 2011 18:19 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. Police detained about 20 people in central Moscow on Tuesday after calls by a nationalist movement for a rally, APA reports quoting RIA Novosti.

The previously unknown December 11 Movement, named in apparent reference to last year’s mass rioting near Red Square by nationalists and football hooligans, earlier called for a "Russia for Russians" rally at the central Manezh Square at 7 pm Moscow time [16:00 GMT].

Police subsequently cordoned off a vast section of the square.

The Russian capital saw its biggest public disturbances for almost a decade when a 5,000-strong crowd of nationalists and football hooligans clashed with police at Manezh Square on December 11.

Further disturbances followed three days later as ethnic Russians and internal migrants gathered for a confrontation near a major train terminus in Moscow. Race hate riots also occurred in St. Petersburg and other Russian cities.